SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – Immigrant children entering the country without their parents are entitled to a court hearing to challenge any decision to stop them rather than turning them over to a family member in the United States, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said that two laws passed by Congress do not eliminate the right to a bail hearing for immigrant children who travel unaccompanied by an adult and are detained by federal authorities. Tens of thousands of children fleeing gang violence and drug trafficking in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador have entered the United States unaccompanied by an adult in recent years. Federal officials place most of those children with relatives in the United States. The Department of Health and Human Services, however, has the authority to hold children who are a danger to themselves or others or to commit
any crime in security facilities, sometimes for months. Immigrant rights advocates estimate that the group is made up of several hundred children and indicated that bail hearings allow them to understand the reasons for which they are being held and to challenge the detention.

The Obama administration argued that two laws “passed in 2002 and 2008” eliminated the requirement for a bail hearing filed in a 1997 legal agreement by giving the Department of Health and Human Services all authority over custody and placement decisions Of the children without adult company.

In 2016, the Justice Department indicated in court documents that immigration judges “are not experts on child welfare issues and have much less expertise in determining what is best for the child,” compared to Health and Services officials Humans. Judge Stephen Reinhardt, who wrote the unanimous decision of the panel of three justices of the 9th Circuit, said that the two laws do not grant exclusive authority over unaccompanied minors to the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) ) Of the Department of Health and Human Services. Reinhardt said that bail hearings are “an opportunity for prosecutors to present the juvenile detention grounds, examine and refute government evidence, and build a record of custody of the child.” “Without these hearings, these children do not have a relevant forum where they can challenge ORR’s decisions regarding their detention, or even find out why they are being made,” he said. Justice Department spokeswoman Nicole Navas said the agency is already reviewing the court’s ruling and considered its next steps.